


future imperfect

by poalimal



Series: 🏴☠️ tropes ahoy! R76 edition 🏴☠️ [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Classism, Fic in the Time of Quarantine, Future Fic, Gaslighting, Gen, M/M, Obsessive Behaviour, Reincarnation, Science Fiction Elements, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26461396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: The imperfect (abbreviated IMPERF) is a verb form which combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state).
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes & Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: 🏴☠️ tropes ahoy! R76 edition 🏴☠️ [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759780
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	future imperfect

''Scuse me, there,' said Jack, 'I don't mean to bother you, but... do I know you?'

Shit. Gabe looked up languidly from the newscroll he'd been pretending to read. 'Sorry-sir?' he said, in Standard. He needed to get out of here.

'Apologies-sir,' said Jack, switching from Tetryllic to Standard. Gabe stared as he slid down in the booth across from him. 'I just-- I feel like I know you.'

He seemed uneasy, tapping his uneven nails on the fungi-glass tabletop: ring finger, middle finger, index, repeat. Gabe's eyes slid up from Jack's hands to the rest of him. He was sweating faintly from work, still, traces of sand dusting his hair, mini-bacta pads dotting up and down his forearms. 

With Jack's rough good looks and worn sand mining uniform, he seemed like something out of Gliese's collective imagination - like the archetypal Second Wave Labourer. He blended in easily with the rest of the cantina; he could've been the brother of any one of the sepia square-jawed models posing in vintage posters hung up everywhere: GLIESE BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE - TOGETHER THE FARMER AND MINER ARE STRONG - ANTI-SLAVERY IS ANTI-UNION - DON'T LET HER DOWN... FILL UP OUR NURSERIES! 

Well - Gabe certainly hadn't come here for the decor. Across the clear waxed floor, footage of interstellar dust and gas drifted, lighting up Jack's eyes as they shifted to the shape of stars.

Old school sector music played - miners shared frothy drinks and blue salt cigarettes. The two in the booth stared and did not speak.

'Ignore the feeling-sir,' Gabe said at last, brushing a bit of imagined dirt from the arm of his suit. He caught the eye of a few miners with the motion - two glared, one winked. Gabe smiled blandly at all three. 'You certainly don't.'

Jack flushed. 'No-sir, I know I don't. I just-- I feel like I've seen your face before.'

That would be because I've been following you on my lunch break for the past mesyats, Gabe thought. 

'I think you just have me confused with someone else,' he said, dropping honorifics.

'No-sir,' said Jack, shaking his head. 'It's you-sir. It's always you.' 

Gabe's heart twitched - he closed out of the newscroll on his portal and checked the transpo schedule. Even with delays, he could be home in a half-chas if he just left right now. Or he could head back into the office... go through those files from the mayor before his brother got his hands on them.

Either way - he should leave. It was one thing to send Tambara after Jack for a full day. It was another to even just visit Jack's cantina of choice. Before it had felt like a mystery, like a bit of fun to brighten his day. But now that Jack was actually here in front of him, he was starting to feel the danger of what he was doing - like he was getting too close to a boundary; or the boundary was getting too close to him.

'Are you an actor?' Jack said, dropping honorifics. Gabe raised an eyebrow. There went those boundaries now. 'I don't really keep up with stuff like that. I just... I think I keep dreaming about your films.'

'Dreams, huh.' Gabe tilted his head lazily. 'And what happens in these... dreams.' 

Did Jack dream of the same impossible past again and again, too? Was he too held in endless war, betrayed for not pretending peace... his comrades becoming his enemies, his enemies becoming his allies... the walls collapsing in flame while he was left behind to die...

Did Jack dream of the half-life that followed, chasing after redemption and revenge and finding neither? 

Did he feel sorry to Gabe? Did he feel sorry _for_ Gabe? Well - he could keep his pity, if he had any. Jack was just some sandminer orphan from the sewer system this time around. He couldn't give Gabe a single fucking thing.

'In my dreams, I love you,' Jack said softly, 'and you're all mine.'

Gabe froze. He could not have been more shocked if Jack had tried to hit him. His face felt like it was tingling, still, hot and embarrassed. The two of them hadn't-- There was no indication that--

Jack was just confused. And Gabe needed to leave now.

'In that case-sir,' Gabe said, standing at once, 'you're definitely thinking of someone else.' Jack stood up, too, though Gabe did not know why.

The waxy floor came up too slick beneath Gabe's boot before he could ask: he tried to slow his fall, but went slipping towards the floor.

And Jack turned and caught him. Backwards into his arms Gabe fell, gasping; right over the boundary he tumbled.

'No, Gabriel,' said Jack, 'I don't think I am.'

**Author's Note:**

> Gliese 667 Cc is a potentially habitable exoplanet, thought to be large and rocky. Mesyats means _month_ in English, chas means _hour_.


End file.
